Jimma Reat’s murder last week in Denver was one more blow to a war-scarred community of Sudanese refugees still struggling to come to grips with the unsolved shooting death of Reat’s uncle four months ago.

The immigrants from the African country are frequently victims, said Project Education Sudan director Carol Rinehart.

“There are a lot of incidents with Sudanese being attacked, hassled and threatened,” Rinehart said. “They have been through a lot of trauma, and to have this happen to them, it just creates more anxiety.”

As a group, Sudanese have experienced sadness and turmoil. An estimated 2 million people died in combat and from famine during the country’s 22-year civil war.

“This is a community that knows death. That doesn’t make it any easier,” said Jennifer Gueddiche, director of the ECDC African Community Center.

Reat’s family fled Sudan on foot, walking for months as they avoided bombs and wild animals, then spent five years in a refugee camp dreaming of a better life while eating little besides raw corn.

In Denver, there are opportunities that didn’t exist in Sudan, but the violence that is part of American society has been a shock, said Gatwec Dengpathot, 29, one of Reat’s brothers.

“I always said that America is the best place in the world,” he said. “When we got resettled, we feel, ‘OK now there is a life.’ It is really hard after surviving all these near-death situations, and we come to a free country where we didn’t think someone would get shot and die like that.”

David Deng, who came to the United States in 2001, was shot in the neck and paralyzed from the waist down when two men robbed him as he returned to his Denver apartment one afternoon last June. When a friend called and told him of Reat’s death, the news hit him hard.

“That is scaring me,” said Deng, 30. “We don’t know why there are a lot of bad things happening.”

His sentiment is widely shared within the tight-knit community of refugees that numbers about 6,000, Gueddiche said.

“This is huge. They’re just absolutely devastated,” she said. “Imagine coming to a place where you are supposed to be safe. … This is the second random act of violence on this community.”

The recent burst of violence began Dec. 26, when Reat’s uncle, Youn Malual, was shot and killed in the parking lot of his Arapahoe County apartment building.

A father of five, he was returning from his job as a bus mechanic when he was attacked. He had no enemies, said Dengpathot, who thinks Malual’s death was the result of someone’s road rage.

His killer hasn’t been caught. Denver police also are still seeking those involved in Reat’s death. The longer the killers stay free, the more likely they — or someone else — will hurt another person, said Reat’s uncle, Thomas Puot.

“If they don’t find them, it could be easy for other people to kill others,” Puot said. “It is very hard to stop criminals if they know they can do this. If they don’t find them, our life is dangerous.”

Authorities in Denver and Arapahoe County have said they have no reason to think the shootings of Mulual and Reat are related.

“At this point, we don’t have any indication of a connection, but it is something we will keep open,” said Denver police Capt. Ron Saunier, head of the Crimes Against Persons Bureau. “I don’t want to rule it out.”

The investigation into Malual’s death is active, and investigators are working on “significant” leads, said Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson.

Saunier said there is no indication that Reat’s death is gang-related.

The assailants, who appeared to be Latino, screamed racial epithets during the attack, said Reat’s brother, Ran James Pal, 25, who was driving that night.

That racial slurs would be part of the assault doesn’t surprise Isaac Bher, 32, who immigrated in 2001 and is now a U.S. citizen. Most Sudanese have skin that is darker than that of the average African-American.

“I know we have been victims by our darker color,” Bher said. “Even the African-Americans are not very happy with us.”

He said he has been laughed at, called ugly and told to go back to where came from. A teenage girl once threatened to hit him with a rock, he said.

Adding to uneasiness among the Sudanese is the blunder of a Denver 911 operator, who told Reat, 25, his brothers and a friend to return to the alleged scene of the crime after an altercation with a car full of men who had hurled bottles at their car and waved a gun at them.

After they drove back to the scene to wait for a police officer, the men with whom they’d had the altercation returned and opened fire.

A general assignment reporter for The Denver Post, Tom McGhee has covered business, police, courts, higher education and breaking news. He came to The Post from Albuquerque, N.M., where he worked for a year and a half covering utilities. He began his journalism career in New York City, worked for a pair of community weeklies that covered the west side of Manhattan from 14th Street to 125th Street.